Rains, giving his best performance, is simply pitch-perfect as the villain to Jimmy Stewart's heroic Mr Smith, by never going about the performance in any one way. He's charismatic, kindly and seems oh so genuine in that not-quite-façade he puts on when gently stringing Stewart along, coldly incisive in any scenes which requires that he be a more straightforward villain that are just tough to watch, and even manages to find a middle ground between these in brief, reactionary momnts in which he sems torn between his past as a good man, and his present status as a cog in the political system. Enthralling acting work and the writing behind the character is so good too.
Runner-Up: Judge Frollo (Cecil Hardwicke), The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Note: I would've put James Cagney in Angels in Dirty Faces and Peter Lorre in M on this list if I really felt the films used their criminal characters as villains, which I don't quite think they do. Anyway, the character of Frollo is just a ripe, juicy part for any actor to play, and Hardwicke certainly takes advantage of this by giving a great portrayal of what unhinges a formerly kind and compassionate man into the soulless, repressed and ultimately, tragically misguided soul who does evil deeds as a means to repress his desires.
Runner-Up: The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), The Wizard of Oz
1939 sure was a great year for villains. The role of the Wicked Witch of the West might be more straightforwardly despicable than the aforementioned 2 villains, but I don't care, Hamilton is just so fun to watch as essentially the mother of all cinematic witches and bitches, she's just so deliciously callous and malevolent with each word spouted out of her mouth.
1940s: Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), Double Indemnity/Pinky (Richard Attenborough), Brighton Rock
The definitive cinematic femme fatale. Stanwyck was perhaps best known for her comedic aptitude in the likes of Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve, or her dramatic damsel in duress turns in Stella Dallas and Sorry Wrong Number, but my personal favourite of hers, and one she should've most definitely won the Oscar for, was as the cold centre of Billy Wilder's masterful noir about Fred MacMurray's smitten Walter Neff and how he's cast into a murder plot by Stanwyck's incredibly alluring, disconcerting, deceptive, basically all kinds of complex turn as the worst sort of manipulator, one who shows absolutely no remorse for her actions and uses everyone as a tool, a means to an end until the very end when it all comes to bite her in the back in one breathtakingly well-acted scene in which Phyllis gets her comeuppance. Stanwyck gives one of my all-time favourite performances with an incredibly unique and memorable character.
As for Attenborough? Well I'll get into him a bit more when I discuss my 1970's villains, but in Brighton Rock he gives a memorable depiction, perhaps the best of any fictional character I love (though love perhaps is not the right word for Pinky) and novel I adore, of just a strikingly psychopathic individual who uses violence not for pleasure, but as the only way he knows how to solve problems.
Runner-Up: Cody Jarrett (James Cagney), White Heat
Runner-Up: Mr. Potter (Lionely Barrymore), It's a Wonderful Life
I thought of putting either Kathleen Byron's Sister Ruth from Black Narcissus, Clifton Webb's Waldo Lydecker in Laura, or Orson Welle's Harry Lime from The Third Man but decided in the end to go for the more conventional (not that that's a bad thing) villain type of the miserly banker who cuts just such an imposing presence just by sitting there and gesticulating with those incredibly expressive eyes and expressions of his, sending chills down the audience's spine with just a passing remark.
1950s: Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), On the Waterfront
Friendly is the perfect opponent to Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy. He actually doesn't have that much in the way of screentime but still manages to give an effortlessly complex portrayal of a downright dirty and vehement gangster who watches his iron fist over the slowly moralised Malloy fading, and his subsequent breakdown and unleashing of anger as a result of this is just incredibly compelling to watch. What could've been a stock villain is instead made into a most memorable one.
Runner-Up: Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), Strangers on a Train
Arguably the best villain ever in a Hitchcock film, it's a shame Walker's performance had to come in a year where both Trevor Howard and Michael Redgrave vie for my personal title of Best Actor 1951 with their performances in Outcast of the Islands and The Browning Version because Walker's work here is simply, sublime. He makes Bruno Anthony at first such a quirky but off-putting presence, and in slowly bringing out the increasingly vile, hidden nature to his character's false prim and proper amiability. Walker makes this villain thoroughly entertaining to watch but also so deeply disturbing in his cold, methodical approach to killing, yet also oddly sympathetic in his desire for some sort of strange comradeship. Great work.
Runner-Up: Colonel Saito (Sessue Hakayawa), Bridge on the River Kwai
What I love about this performance is just how nuanced it is. Technically the film could've left us with just your standard Japanese Commandant sort of malicious figure and it'd have been still a fine film because of Alec Guinness' great lead performance, but the excellent screenwriting by Robert Bolt and Hakayaw never let anything about Saito remain that simplistic. Hakayawa matches Guinness with his intriguing portrayal of a career soldier whose madness is of an excessive devotion to the code of the soldier, whose every act of cruelty is in the name of being the perfect soldier, Hakayawa never lets any of this overbear his performance but instead, lets this seep out subtly in his actions and deeds, making the arc of Hakayawa so compelling to watch.
Excellent list.
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